


if you are the shore i am the waves

by thememoriesfire



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-30
Updated: 2011-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thememoriesfire/pseuds/thememoriesfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was never going to go any other way.  [Warning: serious angst, no happy ending.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you are the shore i am the waves

This was never going to go any other way.

*

Some part of Quinn will perpetually be stuck on that stage, forcing a brave smile despite Finn’s abandonment, and despite Santana’s bitter confidence, and despite all those other girls on the stage that she knows she shouldn’t realistically have any concerns about.

She’d checked the votes, afterwards, and Finn had won.  He would’ve been crowned had he not been kicked out of the dance altogether, which somehow made the fact that she’d not even been in second place  _worse_.

Not knowing  _why_  is the part that’s stuck with her this past year.  Did people actually hate her?  Was it envy?  Was it about the pregnancy?  Was it about  _Lucy_?

She’ll never know, and more often than not it takes the gentle pressure of Rachel’s nails in her hand to pull her out of that moment.

 _You’re so much more than that_ , Rachel had said, in the bathroom at Junior Prom.

And yet here they are, one year later, and Quinn’s still replaying Junior Prom on a loop, even as Rachel is all packed up and ready to move to New York City.

*

Rachel’s second ever song for Glee had been ‘Taking Chances’.  

Quinn’s had been ‘You Keep Me Hanging On.’  

If she was the kind of girl to keep a diary, that would be the kind of thing she’d have been analyzing to death during her senior year.  As it is, there is no point in analyzing something that has been obvious to her since the day she first  _met_  Rachel Berry:

Rachel is a believer.  Quinn is at best a cynic, and at worst an opportunist.  

It’s not a recipe for success.

*

After Quinn’s loss at Junior Prom, and the careful and reverent way that Rachel had helped her fix her make-up in the bathroom, everything had gone back to normal.  

Finn had apologized, and Quinn hadn’t cared enough one way or another to break up with him.  It would’ve just been more drama.  

She’d had the semi-stupid idea that heading into the summer on a positive note would ensure that  _senior_  year, at least, would be the glory note that she always knew she was meant to hit in high school.

(Santana and Brittany were obsessed with  _Friday Night Lights_  two years ago.  

Quinn had tried one episode with them, back then, and had spent the entire first commercial break trying not to hyperventilate in the bathroom.  

It was one thing to abstractly be aware of the fact that Lima worked a lot like quicksand, and without very careful navigation she’d never get out; it was another to watch a TV show in which that was the exact reality of everyone on it.)

*

Of course, in letting Rachel  _see_ her, just that once, she had given Rachel the opening that she’d been looking for for God knows how long now.

Rachel’s idiotic fixation on Finn had fallen to the wayside and instead she’d showed up on the Fabray doorstep two weeks after Prom with a set of college application brochures .

They’d had lunch with Quinn’s mom, who had been making a Bloody Mary when the doorbell rang.  During lunch, Quinn had refused to look at Rachel even once, because the inevitable look of sympathy on her face would’ve at best gotten her slapped again.

 _This is my life_ , she’d thought, bitterly.   _You don’t get to tell me how I should feel about it_.

Rachel hadn’t said anything, though.  

Instead, she’d splayed out a variety of college brochures in different cities, with a variety of different aid and support packages, and had quizzed Quinn’s mom on their finances with almost apathetic denial of how _humiliating_  it was to be talking about these things out loud.

“See?  You have options,” she’d said, softly, when Quinn’s mom was busy stacking their lunch plates in the dishwasher and she was straightening the brochures again.

Quinn had wanted to kill her.

*

It hadn’t stopped there.  

Rachel had always been immune to the concept of ‘bad ideas’, and so she’d poked and poked until whatever remnants of a cool exterior Quinn had were just not there anymore.

Finn had faded to the background by the start of summer; honestly, she hadn’t minded that he spent all of his time goofing off with the guys, and he hadn’t seemed to mind that she spent all of her time trying to avoid Rachel, either.

Not that that had worked out for her so well, because Rachel had clearly planted a homing beacon or something, and by July Quinn had just given up on not talking to her.

“A good plan is the ticket out of this town,” Rachel had said.

Quinn had just sighed, but that had been enough of a response for Rachel.

*

They always had yelled at each other about everything that mattered, so maybe it was inevitable that the fifth week of summer had started out with, “Why are you so desperate to not live your life?” and “Why are you so desperate to make me live it?”

The thing about Rachel, though, is that she’s always at her most beautiful when she really believes in something, and the something she’d believed in from that summer onwards was always Quinn.

It was way too much of a burden for someone treading on such thin ice to handle, and in between kissing her furiously and swiping the DC selection of appropriate post-high school education off her desk, bending Rachel backwards onto it and biting at her lips, Quinn had almost said that much out loud.

*

They hadn’t started … dating, exactly.  After that.

They’d just spent time together filling out applications in advance of the fall deadlines, with Rachel’s surprisingly imperfect script doodling out first attempts, and Quinn’s far more polished writing changing nearly everything in there.

“You’re an inspiration,” Rachel had said.  “You should write about everything you’ve overcome in high school.”

“That’s your line,” Quinn had argued, instead.  “Surely every single one of your application essays is just going to be about how everyone hated you and you rose above it?”

Rachel had bitten her lip, and Quinn had felt something angry and needy shift inside of her again.

“You never hated me,” she’d finally said.

It hadn’t been a question, and Quinn hadn’t denied it.  

There just hadn’t been any point.

*

So no, they hadn’t started dating, but Finn had faded from the background to a text message that just said, “I need to focus on myself this year”, and Rachel had barely even batted an eye when Quinn noted as much over dinner prep in the kitchen.

“Good. You can do better,” she’d said, as sort of a closing statement.

“What—like you?” Quinn had responded, arching an eyebrow.

Rachel had said nothing in return for two hours; had just switched the topic to something far more innocuous like the latest episode of  _90210_ and how ridiculously untrue to life it had been.

The words had stuck with Quinn, however; carving out a neat little place in her psyche right next to Junior Prom.  Dwelling there, like a truth she had spent too many years trying to avoid.

*

By the end of summer, Rachel had stopped pretending to need college applications as an excuse to show up at her house; they’d dropped all pretense, and instead had just started spending long moments in a perfectly crafted bubble of denial, wherein being gay in Ohio wasn’t an issue, and being gay as a Fabray was even less of one, and there wasn’t a half-drunk woman puttering around downstairs who might need an intervention sooner or later.

“I can make you happy,” Rachel had murmured into her ear, the last night.  “No matter what other people will think about us, just remember that.”

*

The thing is, Quinn has never known if she’s even she’s capable of happiness.

Rachel had never understood, and would never understand, that attitude.

*

The countdown timer on their non-relationship had started on the first day of school, when Rachel had tried to keep her distance, and Quinn had tracked her down to the choir room and shoved her up against the piano, kissing her hard just to drown out the sound of  _everything else_.

(Her last year; her last chance; this was where Beth resonates most strongly; this was where Quinn is least like who she wants to be; this was the worst place on earth; she hated it with every fiber of her being; and it’s all she’d ever have.)

“I’m not ashamed of you,” she’d said, breathing heavily.  “If anything, you should be ashamed of  _me_.”

“Why?” Rachel had asked, a hand pressed to Quinn’s chest, where her heart was almost rocketing out of it—trying to flee, for lack of a better thing to do.

“Because I’ll never be what you need, Rachel, and you’re just too blind to see it,” Quinn had responded.

Rachel’s tentative hand past her cheek had almost burned with apology, and Quinn had closed her eyes and said, “Why do you keep trying?”

“I don’t know how to give up.  Least of all on you,” Rachel had murmured, and they’d stayed just like that, with Quinn’s hand pushing away and Rachel’s hand coaxing closer.

*

“So what, you’re gay now?  For Berry?” Santana had asked the next day, pursing her lips and smearing gloss on them in the bathroom next to Quinn.

Quinn had just shrugged.  “Something like that.”

“And you’re  _okay_  with that?”

Quinn had stared in the mirror, past her perfect face and into her eyes—the one thing that would never change—for a long moment.

“Yes,” she’d finally said, because the reality of it was clearly that there was an expiration date on the ways in which she and Rachel had learned to understand each other.

New York, and all of its lights, were calling to her; and no matter how many applications they filled in, or how many loan requests were processed, Quinn had always known that Rachel would go places she couldn’t follow.

*

It had been just after Thanksgiving when her mother had found out.

She’d checked herself into a rehab clinic the next morning, and Quinn had tried to not interpret that as a sign that she’d failed her mom’s expectations so hard that even alcohol wasn’t providing her comfort anymore.

Sober, they had even less to say to each other than drunk.

*

Things Quinn had been thankful for: 

How easy it was to distract Rachel with her hands and her mouth.  How little either of them wanted to think ahead.  The breath-stealing ways in which Rachel’s limber fingers undid zippers on her dresses and buttons on her jeans.  

The absolutely certainty that when Rachel slipped two fingers inside of her, that first time, and exhaled “wow”, it had been the most sincere compliment she’d ever receive.  

The knowledge that  _nobody_  would ever be able to take this away from her, no matter how much she wouldn’t be able to hold on to it.

The fact that when Rachel Berry had said, “I love you” the first time, she hadn’t been expecting a response that Quinn wouldn’t have been able to give in words.

*

After Christmas, her father had shown up, packing up the last of his belongings and dropping off a check that would serve as a deposit for Ohio State.

He’d said it exactly that plainly.

“You’ll flourish there, Quinnie.   Nobody will know about the… difficulties you’ve had, and you’ll go back to being my perfect little girl.  Make me proud.”

She’d stood there holding the check, trying not to crumple it in her hand; trying not to wither, because the expectation on her was to  _flourish_.

*

When Rachel had gotten her acceptance letter from Juilliard, Quinn had felt something very close to her constrict.  Like the bands that were keeping her together were now tightening around her heart; like her own body was trying to tell her that they were running out of time, and it would be so much easier to tell Rachel the truth  _now_  than to wait until the bitter end.

The thing Rachel had always denied the most about Quinn was that she was selfish. 

“You have a beautiful heart,” she’d say, tracing her fingertips right above it, before her hand slipped further down and started doing things that would make a conversation both impossible and unnecessary.

Rachel had been wrong so often in the last year that it still baffled Quinn that she was so successful at everything she tried.

*

A part of Quinn had stayed at Junior Prom forever, and the rest of her had gone to Senior Prom.

She’d won, overwhelmingly, with Sam as her date for the night; they’d looked just a little imperfect, with his too-long hair and her now too-short hair, but he’d danced without restraint and she’d been able to forget the future for just a little bit longer.

Rachel had smiled at her from across a room, and when the first dance was called, Quinn had looked at Sam and said, “I’m sorry, but this isn’t for you.”

He’d understood.  And maybe, she’d underestimated Rachel’s awareness of the predicament they were in, because Rachel had looked baffled and had then started crying, the minute Quinn’s fingers had stretched towards her and it was clear that that was  _deliberate_ , and not just some involuntary reflex.

If she was ever going to say the words, it would’ve been at that moment: with Rachel small and tucked under her chin, trying to stay composed in a way that would’ve made Russel and Judy Fabray applaud.  

Rachel had tried to be more like Quinn, that night.  It fit nicely with the ten months they’d spent trying to make Quinn more like Rachel.

*

This was never going to go any other way, though.

*

The stack of offer letters had grown, and Quinn’s interested in them had waned further with every passing day.

The arguing had started because of that.

“You have so many options.  I’m not  _asking_  you to go to New York with me, I’m just asking you to think about what’s out there.  Why won’t you at least consider—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Quinn had said, rolling away from Rachel, who of course hadn’t relented, and had forced her back onto her back.

“You’re punishing yourself for mistakes you made two years ago by trying to live up to other people’s expectations.  And they aren’t even  _real,_ Quinn, your mother would be thrilled if you went to Georgetown and studied psychology.”

There had been a substantial part of Quinn that had wanted to explain; Rachel had  _earned_ an explanation, but the words just hadn’t come to mind.  How could she possibly make it clear to Rachel that she didn’t think she’d survive in the real world when Rachel had been aching to leave Lima her entire life?  The terror and the uncertainty had started keeping her awake at night, just staring mindlessly at Rachel’s completely peaceful expression and the map of New York that was pinned above her bed.

In Lima, she knew exactly who she was and who she was going to be.

But what about in the real world?

“Maybe it’s not her expectations that scare the shit out of me,” she’d said, finally, because Rachel deserved that much at least.

The look of hurt on her face had been unbearable, and yet another thing that Quinn filed away in her mind to replay over and over again.

*

This was never going to go any other way, though.

*

On her last day in Lima, Rachel had finally broken.

“I believe in this enough for both of us,” she’d said, already crying, digging her hands into Quinn’s shirt and pulling and pushing at her simultaneously.  “Please don’t do this.  Please let just let me try.  I’ll be back in three months, and—”

“Rachel—I just  _can’t_ ,” Quinn had responded, wondering if the lack of air in her lungs was making her voice sound as thin and desperate as she imagined it did.

Rachel had kissed her frantically, digging her hands into Quinn’s shoulders and pushing her back against the wall.  When her shirt had been pulled over her head and Rachel bit at her neck, it had been an angry plea for reconsideration, and Quinn had closed her eyes and said, “Not like this.  Please, not like this”, because Rachel wasn’t the only one who had wished that things could be different.

Rachel had pulled away, tears heavy in her eyes.

Quinn had kissed away every last one of them before they could even drop, before walking Rachel back over to her already-stripped-clean bed and coaxing her onto the mattress.  She’d pulled off the rest of her clothing with mechanically, self-preserving motions, and had then helped Rachel out of her dress—a new dress, one that screamed  _New York_ and not  _Lima, Ohio,_ and that had made Quinn’s teeth hurt with a lot of feelings she didn’t want to acknowledge at all—before settling down at her side.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to ever forget you, like this,” Rachel had whispered, her eyes mapping every single part of Quinn’s body that one last time.

“You will,” Quinn had promised, before kissing her softly and sweetly—an almost perfect opposite of that first time, with her tongue gently brushing past Rachel’s, swallowing all of her broken whimpers.

Rachel had trembled with something approximating grief, and Quinn had shushed her and kissed a way down to her chest, her fingertips brushing gently past Rachel’s nipples—her mind already wondering if the next hands to do this would be large and manly, or soft and girly like hers; the possessiveness inherent to the thought had surprised because she’d been letting go since the first moment she’d laid eyes on Rachel, and still.  

And still.

“I love you,” Rachel had sighed, above her, biting her lip hard, and Quinn had closed her eyes and kissed the rest of the way down Rachel’s body, before settling between her legs and watching her inner thighs tremble.

 _This is the greatest thing I’ll ever do,_ she’d thought, and had closed her eyes so that every sound that Rachel made—every breathless moan of ‘please’ and ‘more, Quinn, don’t—please don’t stop’ and ‘it’s just you—it’ll always just be you’’—sunk into her and stayed there, right by a missing tiara and Rachel’s belief in her and the sure knowledge that she would always break Rachel’s heart.

Her tongue told Rachel the things she hadn’t been able to say out loud; that she’d never be able to say out loud, but she had to somehow say anyway.  Rachel’s hands had started pulling on her hair almost painfully, and it had felt  _good_ —like something of hers was being stolen right alongside something of Rachel’s.

“Come for me,” she’d demanded, one last time, before the tip of her tongue stroked right past Rachel’s clit; and like every other time she’d asked, Rachel had done it.

*

Quinn hadn’t cried the way Rachel had, afterwards: hiding her tears behind a forearm looped over her eyes.

“I’ll come back for you.  If you’re not going to follow me, I’ll come back for you,” had been Rachel’s final bid.

Quinn had bitten down hard on the inside of her cheek to not deny it, because Rachel  _needed_  to believe these kinds of things.

She’d just trailed her fingers along Rachel’s waist one last time, before saying, “Promise me you’ll be amazing, out there.”

Rachel had nodded, still squeezing her eyes closed; and before she’d get the chance to say anything else—anything that might waver Quinn’s resolve—Quinn had rolled away and started getting dressed.

*

It’s just one day later, but it might as well be a different life.

She’s letting herself have this; it’s selfish, and wrong, and Rachel would hate her for being so close and not saying anything, but all of their other goodbyes have been for Rachel.

This silent one, where she’s in the distance, watching Rachel getting ready to board a plane that will take her to her real life, is all hers.

Rachel’s eyes are dull, and her make-up is messy and her clothing is ridiculously uncoordinated, but she’s pulling along her pink suitcase and her dads are hugging her and saying wonderful things.

Some part of Quinn relishes the knowledge that she’s made this much of a mark on the only person she knows who will outgrow Ohio and make a mark on the world.

The rest of her, as always, despises Rachel for being everything that she’ll never be, and despises herself for only ever meeting the expectations of people who don’t deserve to have them met.

*

On the drive home, she pauses outside of the Lima city limits and stares at the sign that might as well say  _Population: Quinn Fabray, Minus One Rachel Berry_.

Puck’s words of wisdom circle the drain of her mind, and some part of her thinks about sending Rachel a letter, just to make sure that she understands.

The problem is, Rachel has faith in all the things that Quinn can’t bring herself to believe in.  Rachel would read that letter and call her and tell her to stop being such a coward, which is the one thing she can’t deliver on.  Not now, and not ever.

She sighs deeply and presses her foot to the gas again; an empty girl in a red Miata, crawling back into Lima at a snail’s pace.

She wonders how many bottles of alcohol she’ll go through before, just like her mother, she can actually handle living here, alone.

*

This was never going to go any other way.

 _Five years from now, when you’re starring in your first play and people are throwing roses at you, I’ll be pregnant with my second child, watching it happen on television, and you won’t even remember who I am._

 _But I’ll always remember you, Rachel, because this town is going to get buildings named after you, and Finn and Puck and I will get together and drink shots of tequila and talk about how we knew you before you made it big._

 _You’ll think about me exactly once, in the future, and it’s when you’re being interviewed by the Advocate because of your gay rights activism and they’ll ask you if you’ve ever kissed a girl.  And you’ll laugh and say, “What, in my entire life?  Ever?  …. maybe”, and think about that cheerleader you went to high school with._

 _I wonder what happened to her, you’ll think, but only for a second, because the reality is that you should know then as you know now that I’ll still be here._

 _I’ll always be here._


End file.
